Shiggity Goes Mad Scientist: Paving The Yellowbrix Road With DIY Adventures!

So... why have I decided on PCB board lights as being the best for growing?
Efficiency (of course), and penetration. Wait a second...these boards have 304 little 0.3W diodes. People have always said low or mid power diodes don't penetrate! Shiggity must be hitting the Huckleberry Kush rosin again! He's saying that low power diodes penetrate better than the king of penetration the 1000W de hps. He can't be serious right? I am as serious as a catholic school nun baby and this is why!

Penetration is an interesting subject. In the past most people have referred to a single point source of light like an hps being best at "penetration" but the truth is that most photons are blocked by the first layer of leaves they encounter! Think about one of the most efficient grow styles, the scrog. HPS or led no light is getting through that scrog layer if you are doing things right.

So what is penetration defined? I would say it means how much of the % of plant leaves are going to be hit with good light?
The answer is slightly counterintuitive. But makes a lot of sense when you think of it.

Really the more sources of light...the more the emission is spread out the better the penetration of light into the canopy. If we are doing our jobs right the entire canopy will block light that is traveling vertically downward.

The key is that a spread out light source will hit the plants at all different angles increasing penetration of the canopy. Take this example. There is a cola directly underneath an hps. It will get light directly from above. On the sides it will get light that has reflected off the walls. But there will be shadows on that cola. Places that never get good light.

With a cob array that cola will be illuminated from all sides. Much fewer shadows, therefore better penetration.

In the past I have seen people argue that LEDs don't cut it because of lack of penetration. Especially low wattage diodes. But the truth is that a photon is a photon. A single photon won't travel any faster or slower or farther if it is from an hps or from a 0.3W diode. That photon will behave exactly the same as any photon of the same wavelength. So really we need to think of how many total photons are traveling in the direction of the plants.

A perfect light source would be a uniform light "film" that had a completely spread out light emittance. It would throw photons evenly across the whole canopy.

Right now the closest thing to that are quantum style boards. 304 Samsun Lm561c diodes on one rectangular plate. Or sunboards with 240 diodes. Or chilled boards etc. These Samsung based boards all beat hps and cobs because:
1. Light is spread out evenly
2. Efficiency is higher (more photons per watt than any other current method)
3. Emission from many low watt high efficiency sources means the least amount of heat. (I can put my boards less than 12" from canopy and the plants are fine. There are no dark spots and no hot spots because the light emission is so spread out.
We are looking to create the most diffuse emission of the most photons per watt. This creates the most "penetration" and is one of the reasons why high efficiency mid power diode boards are the new best choice for maximum canopy penetration.
 
You nailed it shiggs, the cobs are great, but these boards are more efficient and the light is more evenly dispersed. Cobs are like 100 single diodes in one point.

I'm glad and extremely satisfied with my cobs, but all my new builds will be boards. The great thing is the price. Some of these boards are priced low, $40-50 a board.

You should have been a teacher, I'm shitty at explaining stuff.

Thanks
 
Buckshot317 said:
You nailed it shiggs, the cobs are great, but these boards are more efficient and the light is more evenly dispersed. Cobs are like 100 single diodes in one point.

I'm glad and extremely satisfied with my cobs, but all my new builds will be boards. The great thing is the price. Some of these boards are priced low, $40-50 a board.

You should have been a teacher, I'm shitty at explaining stuff.

Thanks
Click to expand...

Not so, your analogy "Cobs are like 100 single diodes in one point" is clear as day :thumb:
 
Here is my 4 QB setup for a 4x4 tent. Should be able to hit a lot of angles. Some updated pics in my build in my sig.

IMG_20170701_204645.jpg
 
ShiggityFlip said:
So... why have I decided on PCB board lights as being the best for growing?
Efficiency (of course), and penetration. Wait a second...these boards have 304 little 0.3W diodes. People have always said low or mid power diodes don't penetrate! Shiggity must be hitting the Huckleberry Kush rosin again! He's saying that low power diodes penetrate better than the king of penetration the 1000W de hps. He can't be serious right? I am as serious as a catholic school nun baby and this is why!

Penetration is an interesting subject. In the past most people have referred to a single point source of light like an hps being best at "penetration" but the truth is that most photons are blocked by the first layer of leaves they encounter! Think about one of the most efficient grow styles, the scrog. HPS or led no light is getting through that scrog layer if you are doing things right.

So what is penetration defined? I would say it means how much of the % of plant leaves are going to be hit with good light?
The answer is slightly counterintuitive. But makes a lot of sense when you think of it.

Really the more sources of light...the more the emission is spread out the better the penetration of light into the canopy. If we are doing our jobs right the entire canopy will block light that is traveling vertically downward.

The key is that a spread out light source will hit the plants at all different angles increasing penetration of the canopy. Take this example. There is a cola directly underneath an hps. It will get light directly from above. On the sides it will get light that has reflected off the walls. But there will be shadows on that cola. Places that never get good light.

With a cob array that cola will be illuminated from all sides. Much fewer shadows, therefore better penetration.

In the past I have seen people argue that LEDs don't cut it because of lack of penetration. Especially low wattage diodes. But the truth is that a photon is a photon. A single photon won't travel any faster or slower or farther if it is from an hps or from a 0.3W diode. That photon will behave exactly the same as any photon of the same wavelength. So really we need to think of how many total photons are traveling in the direction of the plants.

A perfect light source would be a uniform light "film" that had a completely spread out light emittance. It would throw photons evenly across the whole canopy.

Right now the closest thing to that are quantum style boards. 304 Samsun Lm561c diodes on one rectangular plate. Or sunboards with 240 diodes. Or chilled boards etc. These Samsung based boards all beat hps and cobs because:
1. Light is spread out evenly
2. Efficiency is higher (more photons per watt than any other current method)
3. Emission from many low watt high efficiency sources means the least amount of heat. (I can put my boards less than 12" from canopy and the plants are fine. There are no dark spots and no hot spots because the light emission is so spread out.
We are looking to create the most diffuse emission of the most photons per watt. This creates the most "penetration" and is one of the reasons why high efficiency mid power diode boards are the new best choice for maximum canopy penetration.
Click to expand...

You nailed it Shiggs! I'm glad to see someone post this. This is the truth of the matter, folks. :cheesygrinsmiley:

A couple years ago, Icemud wanted to understand "penetration" and tried to get some conversation going. At the time, the controversy was about LEDs and whether they "penetrated" as well as HIDs, but Ice was looking deeper, uncovering the way the photons make their way through the leaves, bouncing around and altering their wavelengths, etc - good deep stuff. :laugh: It's also clear that plants might prefer certain wavelengths but they use all of them. In other words, there's a lot more to "penetration" than we might think.

Then, when people starting building COB rigs, and actually measuring the PAR output at various distances, a fascinating fact emerged. The rules of physics didn't seem to apply to widely distributed light sources. The rule is that you get 1/4 of the output at twice the distance. But when Fanleaf measured his rig with roughly 16 COBs in a 4x4 he got readings of 1/2 at the twice the distance. :hmmmm: That's twice what he should have gotten. Why? Because his COBs were spaced at one per sqft, so each plant was getting light from different sources at different angles. The inverse square rule applies to point sources. 16 COBs spread across a 4x4 is not a point source. :cheesygrinsmiley:

So ... many smaller sources will penetrate much better than one large source, because as Shiggs said, you get good light all over the plant. No leaf is very shadowed. That was about COBs, which as Buckshot said are simply hundreds of small diodes packed together and printed in one shot into a 1/2" wide circle. Nice and efficient to manufacture and cheap to operate, but not really so great for horticulture. For horticulture, we want more of a sky. And we want something cooler than COBs, so we can get more headroom. The boards are the answer! And they're much cheaper than even the best Cree COBs.

I've been studying all this stuff for almost two years and boy am I glad I didn't pull the trigger on a COB setup! These are SO much better in every way. They're perfect for small (non warehouse 10 foot ceilings :cheesygrinsmiley: ) indoor grows.

Great post!
 
Looking great after the weekend. I bet we flip before Friday. Here is the dynasty pineapple fields scrog:
420-magazine-mobile866934167.jpg
 
Buckshot317 said:
I've mostly grown indicas, the 2 scrogs I did attempt, had to fill all the way then flip, and that gave me about 18" above scrog. I have no idea on sativas. But I have feeling your going to nail it. Looks great .
Click to expand...

Here is a picture of an old OG Kush (sativa dominate ?) not sure if it really was since it
never really stretchered much but she did fill out very well, nearly all bud

front_a11.jpg
 
Buckshot317 said:
I thought about making 4 scrog screens for my 4 15gal pots.

I bet that was a nice harvest Gazoo.
Click to expand...

Don't remember the cured total without looking but believe it was like 8 or 9 oz.
And now that I think about it that one was from a flower clone so that could account
for the short stretch.

Here is better picture of the difference in stretch.
Should of used this photo first.

This is the same OG Kush (2 plants) except started from seeds,
the OG's are on the sides, the center is a Blueberry (Indica dominate)
started from seed as well.

End_WEEK5_front_1.jpg


The center Scrog (entire unit, base, Pot, Screen & drain pan) is raised up to compensate
for the difference in canopy height but all 3 screens are the same distance above the soil in the pots
 
Back
Top Bottom